Wednesday, July 10, 2013

No time for sleep...

I was recently asked to build a Riptide with an open cockpit for an old acquaintance. I agreed to take on the project as long as I could work on it for Golden Demon. The photos below show the first few stages of the build, the most complicated being the hatch, of course.



I thought I might have to do a lot of hacking to get a kneeling pose (I really wanted one of the thighs to be a good place to position the pilot), but GW have learned a lot since the Dreadknight and you can very easily pose the legs this way.


Finding the right place to cut the front off was much trickier. Fortunately I left the "shoulder" assemblies off until I'd sorted everything else out. The white plasticard around the opening was primarily to tidy things up, after all the hacking away.



Here's the hatch with its back and front on display. I filled in the back (interior) to smooth things out, and then added various dials/buttons/displays that look like Tau controls.


And here it is with the hatch in place.

And with the command seat. Initially I built a "capsule" of sorts that was designed to slide into the body cavity. Unfortunately to pilot the model the Tau would need to have his shoulders removed, so a different solution was needed. I curved a piece of plasticard up in the back of the body, and built a few more display/control panels (seen stuck next to the seat above and below) to hide some of the items inside the cavity.



As well as the Riptide itself, I'm planning on painting up the support systems in case my acquaintance wants to add them at a later date.


And here's the final pose. The tank commander will be switched out for a kneeling pilot.

Until next time!

Cheers
Dave

13 comments:

  1. That's going to be a very nice centre piece.

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  2. What a cool idea and execution!
    Cheers

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  3. Ace conversion. Very manga/mecha.

    I'd ditch the plasma rifles on the jetpack though. They can't fire at anything at that angle and just generally feel slightly awkvard...

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    1. Hi Jeff

      I quite like the meltaguns in the angle they're at. They are in a "slide" type setup, with this (angled back and up) being the resting pose. In combat they slide forward and angle down to be much more combat effective ; )

      Cheers
      Dave

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  4. WOw, tha's going to be a really neat Riptide when done

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  5. I have a question. What is the red smudges on the model? Are they your filler putty?
    I'm not a tau fan but that is an awesome conversion.

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    1. Yep, that's Bondo putty I put on after assembling and trimming all the mold lines. This one didn't have any big gaps, but quite a few smaller ones. The putty files down really well.

      Cheers
      Dave

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  6. The Riptide offers many possible position. The conversion is almost easy to do with not much.
    I do not get tired of seeing a well-prepared Riptide.

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  7. I...I want to steal this idea. I can't wait to see it in Memphis!

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  8. Very cool pose. Can't wait to see it painted up.

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  9. No comments on the pose/weapons that haven't been offered already (i.e. it looks awesome)!

    No, I would say it needs some sort of styrene ladder/pilot gantry. I picture this thing on a Tau tarmac with the pilot climbing in/offscene. You could get all kinds of crazy with a Tau-themed scenic display base for this thing and all you'd need would be rare earth magnets under the feet on the Riptide and an underlying square of HVAC duct metal to have it removable (.5mm sheet metal or whatever it is - I use it under my figure display bases and cut/sanded on top of all my display plinths - reusable, y'know? Easy to epoxy insulation foam, styrene, etc. on top, too!)

    Right bastard, now I'm itching to do some conversion...

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